Heretofore, as a splicing method for optical fibers, with respect to optical fibers employing silica as a material having a high melting point, a method has been known in which a very high temperature is created by electric arc discharge, and optical fibers thereby melted are spliced to each other. However, to let very small portions like optical fiber tips undergo electric discharge, an extremely high level of technique and precision in control are required, and to let silica be melted, a large electric power was required.
On the other hand, with respect to plastic optical fibers such as acrylic plastic optical fibers or fluorine type plastic optical fibers (see e.g. JP-A-8-5848), no method for efficiently splicing optical fibers themselves, has been known.
The present invention is intended to provide a method for readily splicing plastic optical fibers themselves, whereby the splicing efficiency is increased, and an increase in the transmission loss is reduced.